Dehumanization in Night

Mike Huckabee once said, “The churches have filled in the gaps, especially when you consider that these folks have been dehumanized by this experience…It’s not just a cot, food and a shower they need, it’s a human touch, a hug and some level of respect.” Upon reading Elie Wiesel’s Night, the reader should be able to take this quote and apply it to the book. We should be able to see that no one should have to be treated like an animal and get dehumanized, but the Germans saw it the exact opposite way. They thought of the Jewish people as disgusting animals, when in reality, they are just like everyone else in the world. I completely agree with what is said in the quote. People know how bad the holocaust was, but they might not know exactly the things that happened. In Wiesel’s memoir, him and his family, along with millions of other Jews, get sent to concentration camps. Wiesel and his father get separated from the women in his family. Wiesel and his father, Chlomo, spend their time in Auschwitz working as slaves. While they are there, the Jews get beaten and killed without good reason. The SS officers would gas them, shoot them, burn them and anything else that they could do to torture them. They treated the Jews as if they weren’t even human. A way that Wiesel’s memoir can be read is that Night is an extended example of dehumanization. Almost as soon as the Jews arrive at the camps, the officers commit a dehumanizing crime by taking the identity of the Jewish people. They get stripped of everything, including their names. First they have to give their clothes. They then get their hair shaved off. They also get soaked in petrol oil to be disinfected. Eventually, they get their new “name” tattooed on to their arm. It was a number and from then on, that’s what they would be known as. “The three "veterans" with needles in their hands, engraved a number on our left arms. I became A-7713. After that I had no other...